My Mom's Visit and Dance Recital

My mom came to visit at the end of June to play and to see the girls in their dance recital. Olivia was so excited to learn to sew with KK! They made a cute pillow for her bed.

Look how proud she is!

Annika found many ways to be helpful while they were sewing!

My mom's birthday was coming up, so we celebrated with a surprise lobster dinner. So yummy!

Here we are after the recital. We couldn't take pictures during it, but we got this one afterwards. They did so well! We were so proud of them. Annika did ballet to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Olivia did ballet, tap, and tumbling. They both loved it. Afterwards when we got in the car Annika said, "I want to do that again!" She must have had a really good time.

This is Olivia's tap outfit. She really liked it because it is similar to Molly's (Amer. Girl) in her book. Molly got to be "Miss Victory"- Olivia also pretended to be Miss Victory!

This is Olivia in her tumbling outfit. This was her favorite. It has fringe- she quickly became a fan of fringe!

The girls got trophies (Annika got a bobble head one- she picked it out), flowers, the pink cake they always want, balloons, and a fun little hello kitty gift. They were so excited! I love making my girls feel special!

My nephew Hayes came to visit for the 4th. We had a great time going to the zoo and going to Thurman's Cafe. And eating Graeters! Yummy! He is so cute! The girls had a great time playing with him or watching him play I should say. I forget at this age how they just play along next to other kids, not so much with them.

When it rains it pours

...sort of. I have been meaning to blog for a long time. I have a lot to share. But I haven't had the time. I go to bed after midnight every night and still there is no time. I don't know how parents of more than two children survive. Gold stars for all of you! I put up several new posts- mostly pictures. We got to go to FL. It is the first post and so it is farther down. Don't miss it!

We are still waiting to sell our house. This seems pretty impossible from human standards- that is why we are so thankful God is in control of all of this! We are very hopeful he does in fact have a buyer for us. If not, we want to be open to what he does have. He has been blessing us during this waiting period- AWESOME trip to FL, Graeters (our favorite ice cream here in OH) is now being sold in the Dallas/Ft Worth area at Kroger!, and many other things that I am trying to keep track of so I don't miss any of his blessings! Travis needs to be in TX in Aug. I am going to miss the cooler, mostly bug-free summers here. And our great friends we've made. And our house. Honestly, that is about it. I am ready to move back to the South- I think. The other day I was remembering how hard it is to move. It is almost like starting your life completely all over again. Everything is new and nothing seems like home. Definitely not looking forward to that. But I love our family and just being with them everyday makes everything doable!

Slate Run Farm

The girls and I went to Slate Run Farm- a working historical farm here in OH. The girls had a great time and even got to pet the baby calf. Annika was not a fan of the stinky pigs.

Annika

I couldn't pass up this picture- Annika in her princess dress on her princess scooter.

Florida!

We got to go on a surprise trip (or last minute I should say) to Florida! The short version: talked to my sweet friend Allison the night before they left for their trip to FL. We decided at 10:30 pm to go to. We packed and left the next morning. We had the best time! I will post more later. But here are some pictures. I have many, many, many more on our picasa site! This trip was more than a HUGE blessing to me! It was our first of hopefully many family vacations. The girls adored the beach and everything about our trip.

*some of these pics are ones that our friends took. I have messed with too many in photoshop to know which are which now! The ones that are edited really well are probably his!

New Blogs

I have found a couple of new blogs I really like reading. You have probably heard of at least one of them, but if not I wanted to give you the link so you can check them out. But beware- they are full of real life and God moving in those people's lives. :)

The first one is about a lady with some kids... http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ Please check it out. She has been all over the news and papers with good reason.

The other I found from MCK blog. I loved it. After reading for a while I figured out that she is the wife of a Christian band called Selah. She is an excellent writer. They lost their daughter a year ago. She lived for 2 hours. It is so awesome to see how God has used them bless others. She is currently in India with the Compassion program. It is great to see how they use money that people send. It makes it seem so much more real to me. We aren't randomly sending money to a number, but to a life. Some don't like things like this b/c money has to be used for overhead, etc. but other groups can't get into places like this and really help children who really need it. http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/
Please take the time to read her posts- esp. the one called "I have been ridculed and lied to."
So, so good!

I have so much more to blog about. I want to blog about the rest of our trip to AR, but the pics on stuck on Trav's laptop so I'll have to wait. I also have some funny stories about the girls. Hopefully I will remember everything- another day! Here are a few of the pics that we hadn't downloaded to Trav's computer.



Annika and Olivia with their cousin Ashley- We had a great day celebrating Easter!



Annika turned three on our trip. We ordered a blank cake from a great bakery and got to play with my yummy fondant. It turned out so cute! The other pic is the girls with their cousins at the cupcake place in Little Rock. So fun! I wish they could play together everyday!

Missed

Why today? Something wasn't right. Thank goodness it is finally clear. I miss her. So much. But why today? I have no idea what makes it seem so fresh. My sweet grandmother, who really was my second mom, is missed a lot today. I felt it creeping for days, but I was hoping to move onto another thought. Not today. It is funny. The one person who I feel like could really understand how I am feeling right now is the one I am missing. While thinking of what I wanted to say at her memorial service 8 months ago I realized that we were so much alike. So much more than I had ever noticed. If you've read the love languages book- she was like me- words of encouragement. And her words touched deeply. They didn't have to be many, but they were like thousands of anyone else's words. I can't wait to throw my arms around her neck in Heaven. I really am so thankful for her. Without her I would have been a totally different person. God blessed me enormously with her life.